Coming off the long straight, slightly downhill, and wind at your back road where you easily crank along at 30 to 40 miles an hour before you turn onto the finishing stretches where you get a little bit of cross winds and have a couple of short hills before the finish area. The last time through, after 70 miles or hard riding, my left meathook revolted. Massive inner thigh muscle cramp. All I could do was spin it out and hope for it to stop. Afraid to stand up to stretch in case it worsens. After a few minutes of spinning spasms stop and I could push on a little. Then the right leg starts cramping too and the left starts again Double cramps. That's a first. Other snipets from the 1st race in the VeloBob Cal Cup Challenge, i.e.: the Patterson Pass Road Race...
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We were heading up the first big hill that comes early in the race. The pace had already been hard for 10 or 15 minutes. A Safeway and Spine are up the road. I'm riding about midpack, close to Rozek. Brown's near the front and Hancock is in between. We hit a steep section and I see Safeway's Martin make an acceleration. Like an earthquake's shock waves it ripples through the peloton and I know it's just moments before I'm going to need to stand and respond. Matt says "there goes Martin". And just like that 1/2 the pack is off. We collect the two off the front by the time we crest the hill 5 or 10 minutes later.
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We bomb down the other side and hit the 2nd big climb of the loop. Again the pace is hard as we're still about 20 strong. Someone says "don't these guys know we're doing more than one lap" and someone else responds "a lot of these guys aren't doing more than one lap". Toward the summit of the 2nd climb a small gap forms with an 8 man break that includes EMC's Parks, our Mike Brown, Spine's Hutchinson, and a Safeway. Once this gap forms Spine, Specialized/Sierra Nevada, and Safeway stop pulling in the chase. The unrepresented riders go to front and keep the pace very high through the long section mentioned at top. The pace is very high, but the break is not coming back. Too much horsepower in it and the teams with numbers are all represented. I'm enjoying the free ride but have a feeling Martin or Pasco will try to bridge solo when we hit the climb again. We hit the steep hills and I'm immediately off the back with 4 others spread between me and quickly the disappearing peloton. That was the end of the game for me, I work the remaining 40+ miles to pass a couple more riders and finish somewhere around 18th I guess.
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The Safeway won... don't know his name but it wasn't Lothar, OV, Martin, Pasco or Tofoya. Parks came in 2nd. Brown was 7th. It was about 10 minutes back to Martin and somewhere behind that was Hancock.
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My legs are still paying the price. Tough race. Thanks Roy for manning the feedzone. I was very popular at the beginning lap 3 when I was offering my fellow racers Ludicris sodas in the feedzone. We were all hurting and needed the energy.
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There was a Navigators guy in our race. Big strong dude. Don't know who it was. He wasn't in the winning break but from the looks of him I think he'll have a better time in the flat stages.
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5 comments:
good work out there - sounds like a typical masters hilly race with the contenders and us pretenders
sorry again to bail on the sufferfest, but the Tahoe Rim Trail (TRT) was a lot of fun and I don't think I would have been able to affect the outcome. Felt very flat last Wed/Th. Rode pretty slow on Sat, but it still seemed hard since we were at 8-9K.
Let's put one of the Prairie City special series races on the schedule
That acceleration by Dan filled me with sadness. It was most unsportsmanlike to punish me like that in my first Masters race.
LOL Diskzero. Welcome to the bigs. I used to be a pretty decent sprinter and a pretty decent climber but in M1/2/3 I get crushed on all sides. Has made me a stronger rider though for whatever that is worth!
Master's races are a whole different animal; fast, agressive and tactical (teamwork is a common theme not seen in other races).
If you watch at a crit, most of the M1/2/3 riders turn around and do the P1/2. At first I didn't think much of it, I mean many of us geezers do two races a day. I have done the 3s and M1/2/3 all season. But, at Suisun I got to do my first P1/2 race after a M1/2/3, you know that the Pro race is TWICE as long and faster! It's sick. And a geezer won the P race after being in the break in the M race and breaking away from the break only to crash out in the final laps.
I guess my point is that a lot of these guys do the M race and are still competitive in the P race with the fresh kids. No slack in geezer racing! Welcome aboard.
We refer to the Safeway that won as
The Delivery Man
and it is good to have him back on form after an off early season!
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